yearbook 2010/11 - The European Film College

#40
fi n a lCu t 2011||neo r e a l i s m – ta k e t h e f i l m i n t o t h e s t r e e t s
NEorEALISm
– TAkE ThE FILm INTo ThE STrEETS
Infamous for his breakdowns on film classics like The Battle of Algiers, The
Conversation and The Bicycle Thief. An acclaimed teacher and former head of
postproduction at The National Film and Television School in England and The
International Film School in Cuba, as well as former head of production at The
British Film Institute. mamoun hassan is a top name in the international film
world, and during his stay at EFC he analyzed masterpieces - and student films.
We met him for a talk about Italian neorealism and why young filmmakers shouldn’t
ignore it.
What are the principles for neorealism?
They’re a sliding scale of the essentials of neorealism, one of them being: the film takes
you into the streets and into the locations of ordinary people.
Neorealistic films are about a class that is normally never focused on in normal
fiction. A film that had all the elements of neorealism, which is “Toni” made in 1936
by Jean Renoir, was a film about migrant workers who were Italian and who went
to France, grape picking and so on… Most of the people in the film were actually
migrant workers. The story was set amongst them, the dramas was the kind of dramas
that arise out of the ordinary life of the people who where in that place and of that time.